Dating apps and websites have shifted the goalposts, and the days where we could consult a guide to “fun and flirty first dates” are well and truly over. A movie and popcorn for two? Maybe if you’ve got $60 spare. A night at the opera? Not likely. Picnic in the park? Sorry, I’m working my second job then!

The gig economy and various ongoing financial crises have left the precariat dangling in purgatory: the previously acknowledged markers of “grownup-hood” (a house, a happy marriage, a quarter-acre block and 2.5 kids) have dissolved, and we’re not really sure what we’re dating for.

Open a newspaper or website on any given morning and you’re likely to be faced with tales of calamity, be they financial, political, humanitarian or environmental. Add to the shifting sands of digital dating a creeping sense of the world as we know it beginning to end and it’s hard not to just throw your dating bio in the air, give up, and become a nun/monk.

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But, goddammit, people still need to meet and fall in love. And if you can make it out the other side of the Tinder/Bumble/OkCupid/Messenger chat vortex and turn your match into a real world moment, you’ll still need to go on a date at some point. But what does a date look like in a rapidly crumbling world?

With that in mind, here are some great new spins on classic date ideas for the impending global apocalypse!

Plastic Straw PicnicGet a jump on your next anniversary (first date/wedding day/birthday/naming day) by weaving your own adorable vintage picnic basket out of discarded plastic drinking straws. Just cruise by any watering hole favoured by desperate-looking first-daters and reap the benefits of thousands of people’s tendency to dating-related temporary alcoholism: hundreds and hundreds of plastic straws lurking in nearby garden beds and gutters. Save a sea turtle, ride a cowperson!

Watch An AuctionYes, it’s true, a movie-night date is an evergreen classic when it comes to first dates, but who needs a movie? In this uncertain era, don’t waste money on a ho-hum Dwayne Johnson blockbuster: instead, take a white-knuckle hellride through the thrilling world of Saturday morning property auctions. Will the bidding descend into fisticuffs? Will you get a twist ending (“I’m sorry to say the property has been passed in”)? Save money on the candy bar and BYO homemade popcorn.

Sexy Plastic Bag PartyLook, this one’s maybe more of a second or third date situation, but maybe Coles would’ve had more luck “selling” their reusable plastic bags to consumers if they’d focused on the many other ways the bags could be used other than carrying groceries. To wit, why not spend a hot and heavy night cutting out and sewing your own fetish gear? You could take a giggling trip to SexyLand or your local sexy shop of choice, or you could grab a few dozen Coles bags, some scissors, and live out your wildest wipe-clean dreams!

Free World Small Talk

Set your soon-to-be-loved-one and yourself a fun-filled dinner activity: you can only communicate with each other using printed-out flashcards containing the tweets of President Trump. Who needs to ask “So what sort of stuff are you into?” when you can instead purr “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” You’ll know things are really heating up when they reply with “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” (that means “let’s order two more vodkas and retire to the bedroom for some water sports”).

Build A Rental Fort

With the housing bubble set to burst, god knows what will happen to the property market. Housing prices will fall, rents will skyrocket, or is it the other way around? Either way, get back to a simpler time by spending an afternoon with your sweetheart building a rental fort! All you need is blankets, boxes, a few chairs, maybe some pegs and strings, and then invite forty other couples over to queue up outside the fort. If you want to really make things fun, some of the couples can bring their Monopoly money and offer to give you six months up-front so that they can snuggle inside the rental fort ASAP!